Data storage media are commonly used for storage and retrieval of data, and come in many forms, such as magnetic tape, magnetic disks, optical tape, optical disks, holographic disks, cards or tape, and the like. Magnetic tape media remains an economical medium for storing large amounts of data. For example, magnetic tape cartridges or large spools of magnetic tape are often used to back up large amounts of data for large computing centers. Magnetic tape cartridges also find application in the backup of data stored on smaller computers such as desktop or laptop computers.
In magnetic tape, data is typically stored as magnetic signals that are magnetically recorded on the medium surface. The data stored on the magnetic tape is often organized along data tracks, and read/write heads are positioned relative to the data tracks to write data to the tracks or read data from the tracks. As the number of data tracks increases, the data storage capacity of the magnetic tape likewise increases. However, as the number of data tracks increases, the tracks usually become narrower and more crowded on the surface of the data storage tape. In order to facilitate precise positioning of the read/write heads relative to the data tracks on the magnetic tape, servo techniques have been developed. On magnetic data storage tape, the servo information is often stored in specialized tracks on the medium, called servo tracks.
In some cases, data is written on both a first side and a second side of the magnetic tape to increase the storage capacity. In particular, two-sided magnetic storage tape includes a magnetic material on both the first side and the second side of the tape to allow for recording of data on both sides of the tape. One problem with two sided tape, however, is the possibility of corruption of data when the magnetic tape is spooled, due to the proximity of the second side to the first side on the tape spool. In other words, magnetic interaction between the first and second sides can occur when the sides come into contact on a tape spool. In order to avoid such data corruption, techniques have been used in which the magnetic coatings on opposing sides of a two-sided data storage tape have different easy axes of magnetic anisotropy. Creating coatings for the opposing sides of a data storage tape to have different easy axes of magnetic anisotropy, however, can significantly complicate the fabrication of two-sided tape, and may increase manufacturing costs.